Jailbait Zombie

by Mario Acevedo

  My face heated with anger. “I’ve owned up to that. Her loss means more to me than it does to you.”

  Jolie put her hand on my thigh.

  “I don’t doubt it.” Nathacha’s words dripped with a patronizing tone. “At least one consequence of this fiasco is that we don’t have to worry about Dr. Hennison or zombies.”

  “I wouldn’t be too smug,” I replied. “The fire destroyed his lab, but on the other hand, we lost clues on how to track a future reanimator. What chemicals and equipment should we be watching for? What about his psychotronic diviner? Dr. Hennison managed to make one. How much longer before another reanimator starts poking into the astral plane?”

  Nathacha kept her tombstone expression on me. “Like I said, a fiasco.”

  My kundalini noir jolted from the insult. “How was that my fault?”

  Jolie’s hand groped for mine.

  “Because your investigation was, as you say”—Nathacha snapped her fingers—“une absolue fuckup.”

  Jolie let go of my hand. She jumped to her feet. “That’s enough.”

  Phyllis, Nathacha, and I seemed to lurch forward as if we’d all collided together. Even the dog noticed the outburst and tucked its head behind Phyllis’s legs.

  “The Araneum set Felix up.”

  My mind whipped from anger to confusion, then whipped back to someplace in between. I started to rise but Jolie kept me down by pushing her talons into my shoulder.

  She said, “The Araneum knew all along about Phaedra’s powers but they didn’t warn Felix.”

  Phyllis frowned and her eyebrows clenched. Her eyes swiveled from Jolie to Nathacha and back. “How do you know?”

  Jolie pointed the cylinder at Nathacha. “Because she told me. The Araneum learned that Phaedra’s powers were the strongest they’d seen. They knew about her unstable personality and decided she was too dangerous. It was her idea”—Jolie jabbed the cylinder at Nathacha—“to confirm the Araneum’s suspicions. She had them send Felix and not warn him.”

  My anger curdled into disgust. “Why?”

  Nathacha answered, “Because if Phaedra could read your mind, she’d get all your secrets. If you didn’t know, she wouldn’t know. It was a tactical decision. For the greater good.”

  Phyllis kept her aura smooth, but it glowed hot like the flame from a blowtorch. “What part of this greater good said not to tell me about this? Felix reports to me.”

  Phyllis, Jolie, and I kept Nathacha in the cross fire of our gazes. She’d come here to lash me to a burning stake, and instead the fire licked her feet. But if she regarded this change in situation as more than an inconvenience, she didn’t show it.

  Jolie kept her back straight and defiant. “Felix, just so you know, I wouldn’t have done it.” She meant killing and skinning me. “Please forgive me for keeping what Nathacha told me from you.”

  At least Jolie was having an attack of conscience. “Nothing happened. What’s to forgive?”

  Nathacha remained with her feet propped on the ottoman, un-ruffled by our drama. She gestured for the parchment. Of course, I had to walk to her so she didn’t have to budge from her chair. She held up a finger and shushed us to stay quiet while she read.

  Nathacha pushed the ottoman out of the way. She sat up, handed the parchment back to me, and nodded to the window. “I regret any misunderstandings.”

  Misunderstandings? She had almost gotten me killed. Her apology meant little; she might as well have written the words in yellow snow.

  My aura must have been a banner of indignation. Phyllis made a palms-down calming motion and I tried to Zen out as best I could.

  I forced the window open and threw the parchment outside. The parchment tumbled through the sunlight and exploded into flames. A cloud of gray smoke brought the odor of charred meat.

  I shut the window.

  “We still have other business,” Phyllis said. “Where are Phaedra and Nguyen?”

  Nathacha pointed her icicle-dagger eyes at me like that problem was my fault.

  “Why are you looking at me?” I asked. “Send a crow to find them.”

  “We’ve tried,” she said. “None have come back.”

  Phyllis stood. She took the cylinder from Jolie and screwed the cap back on. She dropped the cylinder into her windbreaker pocket and unclipped her dog from the chair. “Felix, we’ll get back to you.”

  Nathacha came to her feet. She and Phyllis locked eyes. They shot words back and forth in French like broadsides from frigates. They abruptly came to a mutual cease-fire and let their animosity fade behind calm faces.

  Phyllis opened the door. She took my hand and squeezed it. “Take care of yourself.” She gave a parting nod to Jolie and followed her dog into the hall.

  Nathacha buttoned her coat and put on her sunglasses, her imperial demeanor unscathed.

  Jolie said, “Nathacha, I know what you need.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A good fuck. Might do wonders for your attitude.”

  She smiled grudgingly. “You would know. Au revoir.”

  CHAPTER 60

  I returned to my apartment. I needed a drink. I made a manhattan and sipped from it as I wandered through my place.

  Everything around me felt small. I didn’t feel bigger, I think it was that I was aware how my world had shrunk around me. I was boxed in.

  I examined the hawthorn stake. The phallic design was someone’s idea of a black joke. Final words to a vampire: Screw you.

  This stake was the one souvenir I never wanted but was the only item I had to remind me of Phaedra. I put the stake on the table next to my coffin.

  I darkened my apartment and prepared to go to sleep. Usually, I like a snack—half a bag of blood—before I lie down.

  I didn’t feel like eating; I only wanted to close my eyes and let time soften the sharp edges of what happened today.

  I thought about all the occasions, as a human and as a vampire, that I tried my best and came up short. If it was only me who bore the consequences, then I could make peace with myself. But I had caused others to suffer and I would always be to blame.

  I rested against the satin lining of my coffin. I needed to relax, but my mind wandered back to the meeting with Phyllis and Nathacha. It felt like a cue ball cracking hard during a break. My thoughts ricocheted and scattered across my mind.

  I’ve given my best to the Araneum and yet they were willing to sacrifice me.

  What did it mean to be loyal?

  The question burned heavy and hot where my heart used to be.

  My kundalini noir tensed, like it expected another blow.

  My mind grasped at the one remaining lifeline, a blind faith that all would work out.

  Give it time. You have an eternity.

  I lay in the dark stillness, a serene quiet like the calm surf after a storm.

  I heard my name and the familiar echo.

  Phaedra was alive.

  I sat up.

  The echo became siren loud.

  My kundalini noir twisted upon itself, the siren shriek stabbing with needlelike pain.

  The shrieking filled my head. I put my hands over my ears though I knew the noise came from inside my brain.

  My psychic column trembled like a jet of water pulsing through a narrow hose. The straight lines and right angles in the room twisted and bent. I tried climbing out of the coffin, lost my balance, and collapsed to the floor.

  Up, down, left, right, the directions tumbled in dizzying randomness while the shrieking bounced against the inside of my skull.

  Nausea crawled up my throat.

  I backed against the table where my coffin laid.

  I put my hands flat on the floor and tried to regain my bearings. A table leg pressed against my back and I faced the front door of my apartment.

  The cascade of noise fed the nausea and I convulsed with dry heaves.

  The door shook and it flung open, splintered wood flying where the dead bolt broke through the jamb.

/>   Phaedra stood in the threshold, backlit by the streetlamps.

  Her aura blazed like the exhaust fire from a rocket engine. A burr of malevolent thorns quivered across her penumbra.

  Her eyes shone bright as electric arcs. Long fangs glistened from a mouth bent into a cruel smile.

  She wore a long black dress covered in black lace. A black sash wound across her thin waist. A necklace of small black shapes swung over her bodice. Each velvety shape had a shiny spot—an eye—and a black point. A beak.

  It was a necklace of crow heads.

  In her left hand she carried a leather bag weighed down with an object the size of a bowling ball.

  Phaedra kept her fierce gaze locked on me. She swaggered in. Flip-flops slapped her feet. She grabbed my wrist with her free hand and dragged me from the table.

  I lay powerless, limp with nausea.

  Phaedra kicked off her flip-flops and put a bare foot on my throat. She raked her talons across my scalp to grasp a handful of hair. Blood trickled from my skin.

  She shook my head. The motion made me want to retch. I closed my eyes to keep from vomiting.

  “Look at me.” She yanked my hair.

  I opened my eyes. Phaedra appeared huge and menacing, grotesque, like a giant’s reflection in a funhouse mirror.

  Bile filled my throat. I pleaded, “Make it stop.”

  Slowly the shriek faded to a hum, then silence. The nausea passed and the bile receded down my throat.

  She let go of my hair and cupped my chin with her knife-like talons. Her eyes probed mine and I could feel her thoughts slither into my brain and slither back out.

  Phaedra’s eyes glistened with an amused twinkle. “So the Araneum knows about me? Good.” Her face regained its youthful appearance.

  The lines in my room became straight and my sense of balance returned.

  Phaedra released my chin and pulled her hand away with a slap. “I’ve come to thank you, Felix.”

  “Much obliged.” Blood oozed from the stinging wound on my cheek. “You didn’t have to trouble yourself. A phone call would’ve been sufficient.”

  “Always with the jokes.”

  “I’m not laughing,” I said.

  “Then laugh at this. I chose you because of your weakness. Your guilt. That weakness would let me pry into your head and bring you to me. You were the vampire hero and I beat you.”

  I felt raw and exposed, more than I would if naked. I felt used. Violated.

  Shame washed over me.

  I couldn’t live with the disgrace. But I could live with vengeance.

  Phaedra would die.

  My mind clearer, I thought about what weapons I had close by. My aura could signal my intentions, and if I sprang at Phaedra, by the time my feet were off the ground, she’d cripple me with another psychic mind blast. When I attacked, it would have to be sudden and thorough.

  My pistol was in the next room. But it wasn’t loaded with silver bullets.

  What happened to the hawthorn stake? Was it still on the table? Or had it fallen? I moved my arm and felt the stake slide across the T-shirt under my right shoulder. Now to wait for the chance to strike.

  “I brought you a present.” Phaedra undid the knot cinching the leather bag in her hand. She upended the bag.

  A head with spiky black hair thumped against the floor. Phaedra toed the head until it faced me.

  Nguyen’s vacant eyes gazed from the puckered recesses of the sockets.

  The dread, the horror, made my neck and shoulders lock up.

  Nguyen’s lips were black as ink against his purple skin. He’d probably been dead for days, though with some vampires it’s difficult to tell.

  “He never liked me,” Phaedra said, “so I killed him.”

  I stared at the head. “Why?”

  “Because he said no. I offered him the chance to join me.”

  “In what?”

  I moved and rolled the stake close to my right hip.

  “My destiny. I’ve known it since the time I first became aware of myself. The world pitied me. ‘Poor Phaedra, what a raw deal from life.’ But I knew if I could escape that sentence, if I could cheat God out of what he’d given me, then the world would be mine.”

  “How?”

  “Because vampires, humans, everyone would belong to me.”

  My expression must have said, you’re insane.

  Phaedra responded, “Why? Because I’m young? Alexander the Great was only sixteen when he set out to conquer the world.”

  “The Araneum will stop you.”

  Phaedra clasped the necklace of crow heads. “This is what I think of the Araneum. I will destroy the Araneum.” She kicked Nguyen’s head. “Just like I did him.”

  I saw my chance. When she went out through the door, I could leap after her and tackle her. If I hit her hard enough, the advantage would be mine. I’d run her through with the stake.

  She narrowed her eyes. A smile wormed across on her lips and her eyes opened wide in theatrical sarcasm. “Oh no, the stake.” She jammed a foot under my ribs. She jerked her foot and the stake clattered across the floor.

  “You shouldn’t worry about the stake when I have this.” Phaedra pulled the skinning knife from her waist sash. “It cuts well. Ask Nguyen.”

  She sheathed the knife and tossed the leather bag onto my chest. “Go show the Araneum what I’ve done.” She slipped on her flip-flops and stepped back to the door.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To learn. There’s so much I don’t know and yet look at what I’ve done to you.”

  Phaedra stopped at the threshold. “When you report to the Araneum, tell them I will have more of this.”

  Her aura flashed like the blast from a cannon. Her eyes burned with megawatt intensity.

  The noise started in my head, rising to a pounding like I was at the bottom of a waterfall. My psychic column shook like it wanted to tear free of my body. Spots erupted before my eyes, jittering as the walls and floor pitched.

  The nausea overwhelmed me. My vision narrowed to a tiny point. My knees buckled and I crumbled to the floor.

  The shrieking stopped. The nausea vanished. I became aware of gravity and felt the refreshing coolness of the wooden floor against my cheek.

  The echo shrank to nothing. The silence left a void in my head and my thoughts trickled in like sand.

  I sat up and stared about the room. Things seemed so normal I could imagine that I had hallucinated everything. But Nguyen’s severed head and the splintered wood from my broken door put me front and center before reality.

  I balled the leather bag in my hand and got to my feet. I wiped a trace of sour spit from my lips.

  I knelt and scooped Nguyen’s head with the bag. I juggled the bag until his head rested on the bottom.

  I found the hawthorn plunged upright through the lining in my coffin.

  I felt nothing. No anger. No shame.

  I made myself another manhattan and let the ice melt to mellow the bourbon.

  The emotion that first came back was the desire to see things as they were.

  Phaedra was gone.

  I was still here.

  I sipped the manhattan. It tasted good.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Much thanks to HarperCollins, specifically my publisher at Eos, Lisa Gallagher; my editor, Diana Gill; her assistant, Emily Krump; online marketing manager Michael Barrs; marketing manager Christine Casaccio; and publicist Jack Womack. Also great thanks to my agent, Scott Hoffman, and the staff at Folio Literary Management, LLC. I have to mention my critique group: Jeanne Stein, Sandy Maren, Jeff Shelby, Tamra Monahan, Warren Hammond, and Margie and Tom Lawson. Several other groups have kept me going: Lighthouse Writers Workshop, Mystery Writers of America, El Centro Su Teatro, and the Chicano Humanities and Arts Council. To Stevon Lucero for his wonderful discussion on metaphysics. To Dr. Ricardo Cantú, of California State University–Los Angeles, for his enthusiastic support. Erika Paterson, Manuel Ramos, Jennifer Mosq
uera, and Eric Matelski: thanks for the props. Big hugs to my sons, Alex and Emil, and family, especially my sister, Sylvia.

  About the Author

  MARIO ACEVEDO is the bestselling author of The Nymphos of Rocky Flats, X-Rated Bloodsuckers, and The Undead Kama Sutra. A former infantry and aviation officer, engineer, and art teacher to incarcerated felons, he lives and writes in denver, Colorado.

  www.marioacevedo.com

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

  Also by Mario Acevedo

  The Undead Kama Sutra

  X-Rated Bloodsuckers

  The Nymphos of Rocky Flats

  Credits

  Cover design by Will Staehle

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  JAILBAIT ZOMBIE. Copyright © 2009 by Mario Acevedo. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  EPub © Edition JANUARY 2009 ISBN: 9780061972959

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